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Asked: 2026-05-12T09:05:06+00:00

I’m trying to open a series of Excel spreadsheets using an instance of Excel

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I’m trying to open a series of Excel spreadsheets using an instance of Excel created inside of a module in an Access database. I can get the files to open properly; however, the actual call to make Excel start takes quite a while, and to open the files takes even longer. The location of the files doesn’t matter (same time to open on a local HDD as a network drive).

In an attempt to figure out what was taking so long, I added a timer to the logging module. Opening the files takes approximately 2m30s, during which the host application (Access) is entirely unresponsive to user input); the rest of the script executes in less than 10 seconds.

I’m using the standard Excel.Workbooks.Open call as follows

Set OpenSpreadsheet = Excel.Workbooks.Open(Name, 2, False)

Using Debug.Print methods around this line says it can take up to 2 1/2 minutes for this one line to execute.

Is there anything I can do to make the Excel files open quicker?

EDIT: When opening, UpdateLinks is False and ReadOnly is True; all other options are left to their defaults.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    First idea: Can you use a jet driver with an ODBC connection to Excel, instead of opening it in an Excel object? Might be much faster.

    Second idea: Make sure to create and instantiate the Excel application object just once at the beginning of the routine, then use the Excel.Workbooks.Open() and Excel.ActiveWorkbook.Close() for each spreadsheet. That way you’re not “re-launching” the MS Excel application each time.

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